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until 14.04. | #1917ARTatBerlin | Esther Schipper currently shows an exhibition by the artist Ceal Floyer.
Esther Schipper is pleased to announce Ceal Floyer’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition includes new works. Shown are three sculptures, a photographic work and an audio work.
Ceal Floyer’s oeuvre, which in recent years has been the subject of a series of major institutional solo presentations, is characterized by a unique voice: her works exude a restrained but strong presence and appeal to us with playfulness and depth. Small changes to found objects, mostly familiar from everyday experiences, lead to surprising interventions that raise awareness of our environment. The artist mixes visual and linguistic references and combines semantic levels in a confusing and humorous way. Her work reaches a deeply paradoxical state: featherweight gravitas.
Greener Grass acts as a central marker: the work choreographs the experience of the exhibition space and invites the visitor to enter: a wide grassy area on a low pedestal radiates a great lightness. It’s not about reality but about an act of faith: as visitors walk around the green, they question their perception – is the grass on the other side really greener? The work, of course, takes the English saying to the word and shows them both Pages in a plane. From the entrance we see a green, from the inside the green is another-but is it greener? In a small wall-mounted showcase is 150 cm: A standard measuring tape, which was cut into individual centimeter sections. If you take the title literally, the showcase contains 150 centimeters.
The removal of its functionality from an object by the performance of its literal function is also the starting point for Slinky: in its natural physical form, the toy can no longer move, the possibility of momentum is lifted. Similar to her sculptures, Floyer’s photographs often portray visual and verbal puns. At first glance, Umbrella’s use of an inverted umbrella filled with water makes a simple reversal of function. From a convex shield pointing to the sky to protect its wearer from the rain, the characteristic shape has been transformed into a vessel.
The new audio work Slide, initially reminiscent of a minimalist sculpture, combines two soundbars with found acoustic representations, the auditory equivalents of spatial movement. Her audio work, which is an essential element of the artist’s oeuvre, can be abstract and concrete, as are many of Floyer’s works, which act as a conceptual syncopation: as if rooted, we stop in the middle of the movement.
Ceal Floyer was born in 1968. She graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London. The artist lives and works in Berlin.
Floyer was nominated in 2006 for the Nam June Paik Award and in 2007 for the National Gallery Prize for Young Art in Berlin. Solo Exhibit Selection: Ceal Floyer, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (2016); On Occasion, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2016); Ceal Floyer, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2015); Ceal Floyer, Museion, Bolzano (2014); Ceal Floyer, Cabinet of Contemporary Art, Bremerhaven (2013); Things, Project Arts Center, Dublin (2011); Works on Paper, CCA, Tel Aviv (2011); Ceal Floyer, DHC / ART, Montreal (2011); Auto Focus, Museum of Modern Art (MOCA), North Miami (2010); Ceal Floyer, KW Institute For Contemporary Art, Berlin (2009), and Gakona, Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2009). Floyer participated in Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016), dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012), and the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).
Exhibition period: Friday, 16th March to Saturday, 14th April 2018
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Image caption: Ceal Floyer, Umbrella, 2018, Photo © Ceal Floyer
Exhibition Ceal Floyer – Esther Schipper – Contemporary Art Kunst in Berlin | ART at Berlin
